


When Old Men Plant Trees (The Chestnut Remix)

by Esteliel



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, First Time, Fluff, Gardens & Gardening, Javert Lives, M/M, Post-Seine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-08 17:59:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15935468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esteliel/pseuds/Esteliel
Summary: How can it be that Valjean now finds himself quietly longing for Javert's company? They are not friends.And yet.





	When Old Men Plant Trees (The Chestnut Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Plaid_Slytherin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Plaid_Slytherin/gifts).
  * Inspired by [In the End, a Comfort](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7350853) by [The_Plaid_Slytherin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Plaid_Slytherin/pseuds/The_Plaid_Slytherin). 
  * In response to a prompt by [The_Plaid_Slytherin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Plaid_Slytherin/pseuds/The_Plaid_Slytherin) in the [remixrevivalmadness2018](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/remixrevivalmadness2018) collection. 



Javert weeds.

Javert weeds, and Valjean watches.

Javert is focused on his task. That stern, angular face with its intimidating brows and bristling whiskers is grim with determination. It is a tableau that is familiar to Valjean. In a hundred nightmares, he has seen such a face, such a furrowed brow, always behind him, following no matter where he hides or runs.

Now, that fearsome concentration is turned on a patch of weeds that have taken over the space between bushes that will yields redcurrants later in the year, and whose fruits might have fallen to the birds, had not Javert decided on a whim to put his hands to use.

Large, clad in black gloves, they clench around stringy plants, disregarding the sting of nettles as they clench, pull, discard.

Valjean watches, not quite certain what to make of the sensation he feels—an odd flutter in his stomach, although he is not afraid. Javert has slept in his house for over a month now. What is there to fear? Had Javert desired to tear him in chains from this garden, he would have done it weeks ago.

It is warm. The sun shines down on Javert. Valjean watches, strangely unsettled, until he can no longer take it and retreats inside.

There, it is even worse. Something in his chest is tight; something seems to pull at him to return outside.

Can it be that he misses Javert?

The thought is bizarre. And yet, there is some truth to it. For a while now, he has found himself remembering the years spent in the convent and his friendship with Father Fauchelevent, whom he thought the one and only friend life would grant him.

Yet even Father Fauchelevent did not know everything there is to know about him. Javert knows. Javert knows all too well what Valjean has spent a lifetime hiding from the world.

How can it be that Valjean now finds himself quietly longing for Javert’s company? They are not friends.

And yet.

Valjean pours water into a cup, then returns outside. He offers it to Javert, who pauses and drinks greedily, as if surprised by his own thirst.

“Thank you,” Javert says and returns to his work.

Valjean retreats, confused by what seems to unfurl inside him when he watches Javert’s grimace of concentration relax for a moment into something that is not yet quite a smile.

***

“I will bring another blanket.”

Javert brushes his concern away brusquely. “Nonsense. It’s not that cold yet.”

All around them, the trees have long since turned yellow and red, most leaves shed. Autumn has arrived and almost departed, making way for the winter that will soon follow.

But it is not winter yet. It grows dark early these days, but there is still an hour or two of sunlight left to them.

Valjean watches, still confused, as Javert tugs off his gloves, finger by finger, and then gives the door another experimental pull. It creaks again.

“I will fix it tomorrow,” Valjean offers, and Javert shakes his head.

“I can do it myself. There’s still time before dinner. Will you bring me some oil?” Javert moves the door again, and the hinge creaks as if on command.

“I thought,” Valjean offers instead, something strange still shifting inside him as he watches Javert handle the door as if he belongs here, as if he had always been a part of their quiet life in this garden, “that perhaps, we might go for a walk instead before it grows dark.”

At his words, Javert lets go of the door and looks up. His eyes are dark. Despite the golden light of the sinking sun, Valjean cannot quite make out the emotion within them. Then Javert’s lips twist into a smile that bares his teeth, but nevertheless fills Valjean with an odd contentment.

The not-quite-smile is familiar now, as is the sight of Javert’s broad shoulders filling the door of his small hut. And giving up his bedroom is a small price to pay for such unexpected companionship, so late in his life.

***

They do not talk as they walk. They leave the house by the secret path that leads between high walls along the gardens of their neighbors, then exit through the door onto the Rue de Babylone. When Valjean turns to lock the door, Javert watches him thoughtfully. He wears his coat buttoned up to his chin, his hat drawn deep into his face. His eyes are barely visible. The sky is turning orange as the sun continues its descent, and Javert, by all appearances, still the same suspicious police spy who once dogged Valjean’s steps in Montreuil-sur-Mer.

And yet there is no fear in Valjean’s heart when he turns to face him. Instead, something flutters inside his stomach once more. Warmth spreads inside him as something unfolds like a flower.

Unafraid, he smiles at Javert, remembering autumn evenings in Fauchelevent’s small house, the scent of smoke and hearty stews, mist hiding the convent walls from view, Cosette’s cheeks red with excitement as she ran towards them.

Silently, they walk, staying away from the busy boulevard and remaining on the smaller streets that lead past quiet houses and gardens. Before them, the sky turns pink, then purple as the sun slowly sinks below the horizon.

Twilight weighs heavily on the city. As they continue to walk, a bat flies past them. The lamps before them are already lit.

Beneath a lamp, Javert suddenly stands still. Valjean gives him a quizzical glance, but Javert is not looking at him. Instead, his eyes are turned up to where the dark arms of a tree are gently swaying in the cool nighttime breeze.

It is a chestnut, Valjean realizes after a moment. All around them, the ground is covered with the soft, green shells that surround its fruits. Here and there, the gleaming brown nuts can be spied on the stones.

Abruptly, Javert kneels, then rises again. In his hand, he holds a chestnut. His thumb strokes the smooth brown skin, and feeling strangely breathless, Valjean watches. He cannot say that Javert is a man who holds any capacity for tenderness inside him, and yet now, as he watches how thoughtfully the pad of Javert’s thumb traces the gleaming surface, the thing within him flutters again, something aching in his throat. For a moment, he cannot speak when Javert at last looks up.

Javert’s lips twist again, forming what counts as a smile from Javert. By now, Valjean has come to recognize the sight. A moment later, Javert’s fingers touch his. Javert is not wearing his gloves, Valjean thinks dumbly, a moment before he realizes that Javert has handed him the smooth, brown chestnut.

“I enjoyed our walk today.” Javert’s voice seems a little rough.

A moment later, he turns to retrace their steps, and Valjean has to hurry to catch up with him. He holds the chestnut in his palm. It is smooth, still warm from when it rested in Javert’s hand.

Not quite understanding why, Valjean tightens his fingers around it, keeping it close with the care of a man tending to the last ember in winter.

***

Once it gets colder, Valjean waits until Cosette has gone to sleep, then spreads out his pallet in front of the hearth. He thinks of Javert as he settles down for the night. It is freezing at night now; he hopes Javert will not be cold.

He is almost embarrassed to realize that he brought the chestnut in with him; for some reason, no matter where he sets it down, he finds himself handling it in his fingers again sooner or later, the brown nut smooth against his skin.

The house is silent. The fire has burned down, although the warm glow of the embers makes the chestnut gleam in his hand. He looks at it for a long moment, barely feeling the straw mattress beneath him as something heavy and warm spreads inside him. When he falls asleep at last, it is with the chestnut still held against his chest.

***

“Good God, Valjean! What’s the meaning of this?”

Javert stares down at him, and Valjean, rudely woken from his slumber when Javert’s boot impacted with his thigh, blinks in confusion.

“Javert,” he murmurs, his thoughts slow with sleep. “Forgive me. I wouldn’t have spread myself out here in the way if I’d known…”

“Never mind that,” Javert says impatiently. “What’s the meaning of this? Why aren’t you in bed?”

“Because you’re in my bed.” A heartbeat later, Valjean realizes this was the wrong thing to say. He also realizes that for some reason, he has held the chestnut clutched against his chest in his sleep. For a moment, he does not know what is more embarrassing.

His bones ache as he tries to rise, his muscles protesting, no longer used to nights on the floor after so many years of the comfort of a mattress beneath him.

Javert’s expression is fearsome; his mouth opens and closes, and then he clenches his jaw and reaches down, hauling Valjean to his feet with surprising carefulness.

Valjean is too close to Javert. The heat of his breath ghosts against his skin; he imagines he can feel the warmth of Javert even through the layers of his clothes. Embarrassed for some reason he cannot name, he takes a step back.

“Why aren’t you sleeping upstairs then?” Javert’s brows draw together. Something in his expression has changed. He is looking at Valjean now with the familiar focus of the inspector who has just about solved a crime.

“There’s no space for me upstairs,” Valjean says, then mutters, “either way, it doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t matter?” Javert does not raise his voice, but now, for the first time in months, there is a hint of a sharpness in it that Valjean remembers well. “In any case, then I should be the one to sleep here.”

“You are a guest. The mere suggestion is ridiculous.”

Javert still stares at him with that fearsome glare, but Valjean does not budge. He would not make a guest sleep on a mattress of straw when there is a bed to offer. He knows what it can mean to be offered a bed. And even though Javert will not have slept on planks for many years, if ever, a part of him is horrified by the thought that a man in need might sleep on the ground while he, Jean Valjean, sleeps in a soft bed in the same house.

“It is cold,” Javert says and thrusts out his bed warmer with the same satisfaction as he might show a piece of evidence to a judge. “There’s only one thing to be done then. There’s space enough in your bed for two of us.”

Valjean cannot argue with that, even though the thought makes the strange flower that has spread its roots inside his chest tremble as if shaken by a sudden gale of wind. Heat rises to his cheeks; he has to avert his eyes. He almost wants to deny Javert again, but then his gaze falls upon the chestnut he is still holding in his hand.

He remembers the sudden warmth when Javert gave it to him. The contentment of walking through the twilight by his side.

Perhaps men like them might find friendship after all.

***

In the morning, when Valjean wakes, it takes him a long moment to remember where he is. He is warm. The mattress beneath him is soft.

And against him rests a living, breathing body, a sensation he has not known since those nights chained in the salle with other convicts.

But this morning, there are no dark dreams that have woken him from his slumber. Instead, he feels light, a smile on his face even before memory returns, and with it the awareness of what has come to pass during the night.

Javert leading him back to the lodge. The moment they crawled into bed together.

And then, the kiss.

His heart gives a jolt, like a young animal frolicking in the spring sun. And yet it is not spring but one of the final, golden days of autumn. And he is not young but an old man.

Still, his heart, this poor, dumb thing in his breast, seems to have woken overnight. Now it beats with a fast, joyful rhythm, every beat of it echoing in his ears—and with it the awareness of how warm Javert feels against him and how comfortable it is to rest against a body that heretofore had seemed to only consist of large hands and hard, angular lines.

Valjean is not surprised to see that Javert is awake and watching him when he opens his eyes. Has it not always been thus? Javert will not let him hide. Javert will pursue—pursue even in this, when for the past few weeks, Valjean himself had not known what this thing was that had grown between them.

Now, the proof of it is undeniable. It is there in the hot throb of Javert’s arousal against his thigh. It is there in the way his own body has risen in a similar manner, something hot and sweet filling his veins even though he feels stymied by its presence for a moment, for it is not something he has experienced before in the presence of another person.

Where do such things lead? He knows it; Toulon, for all that he kept himself alone and chaste for the many years of misery, was a harsh teacher of the desires of men.

At last, with his heart beating faster and faster in his chest in joyful anticipation of a thing he does not dare face yet, he leans forward. They have kissed last night; he remembers it well. This is a thing he can do—would gladly do again, a hundred times.

Javert’s lips against his mouth are rough, and then they are soft. Valjean hears himself making a soft, aching sound, and then his hand is in Javert’s hair, and Javert’s hand is between their bodies.

“Javert,” he entreats, overwhelmed, fearful, jubilant. Javert’s fingers bring them together, Javert’s shaft as hot and hard as his own arousal. Then there is nothing but an ecstatic period where reason slips away entirely, where there is no thought, no fear, but only the sensation of Javert’s breath against his mouth and the hot pleasure of Javert’s hand stroking them together.

He loosens his grip on Javert’s hair, his hand slipping down to curve around Javert’s neck. Javert’s skin is damp with sweat, Javert’s breath coming in soft gasps against his own lips. Despite the coldness of the late autumn morning, it is almost unbearably hot beneath their covers as they move against each other, and despite sixty years of loneliness, Valjean finds that his body knows what to do even when he can barely remember how to breathe as the heat within him rises and rises.

He clutches at Javert, his body knowing only one goal: to be closer, closer, closer, to feel Javert’s warmth against his skin, to know himself held and to hold in turn—

And then Javert makes a sound that sounds almost pained against his lips, his body tensing. Wet heat drips over them both, Javert still stroking them through it, and then Valjean too loses all hold on himself, trembling against Javert as he is overcome.

Long minutes later, Javert’s lips brush against his throat. Beneath the blanket, it is still comfortably warm. Javert’s arm has wrapped around his chest, holding him as if that was where it has belonged all along.

Valjean’s gaze falls onto the window sill. The chestnut rests there, gleaming red-brown in the first rays of the morning sun. Valjean finds himself smiling as he looks at it, for the first time daring to imagine a world in which there will be a companion by his side through the coming years. Even now that vision is almost too beautiful to contemplate. But Javert’s skin is warm against his own, his arm heavy, and Valjean still remembers the smoothness of the chestnut in his palm, an innocuous thing from which, with care, a splendid tree might grow.

He is no longer surprised at the thing that has unfolded in his chest. It keeps spreading deep, strong roots through his limbs as Javert’s arm tightens around him, Javert’s lips brushing the rim of his ear.

Perhaps it should not have surprised him that now, at last, flowers have grown from the thorns. Javert has always been efficient at every task he set himself, after all. And now, for the first time, with the brambles and weeds gone, sun reaches every part of Valjean’s garden.


End file.
